This past weekend marked the annual Tulip Time Dutch Festival in Pella, IA. For several years, my friend, Jon Neifert, has been leading the charge in sharing the gospel to this Reformed Christian town with his organization called: Tulip Gospel Outreach. An evangelism conference that not only teaches you how to share the gospel in a classroom setting, but applies it with people to help you do it in a practical and biblical way.
This year even with limited volunteers partaking in the events, we were able to distribute over 25,000 gospel tracts over the three-day event, with only one case left to use for next year.
Leading Teams
As in the previous year, I led teams to go on the streets of the festival to share the gospel. Last year was so amazing, with teaching several people how to share the gospel including the headline speaker, Dr. Robert Carter, PhD. I was on cloud nine watching people come out of their shells, conquering fear and boldly proclaiming the gospel to strangers; watching unbelievers eyes opened and really considering their eternal destination.
This year was a little different.
Those attached to my group didn’t stay with me, with the exception of my wife, who was by my side the whole time. I found those who left were a bit distracted by events and things happening around them; especially family members pulling them away to do other things. I tried to encourage them to stay with the group, that it would be beneficial to learn evangelism that would carry on through the rest of the year. But the more I encouraged them, the more they became distracted. I was fighting a losing battle. Others wanted to go it alone, which was cool. Either way, I was a phone call away if they needed anything.
At first, I was a little discouraged. But as the time went on, it got easier with each interaction with those at the festival. Most of my witnessing was by my picture taking evangelism method. It seems to work the best, especially with those who are at the festival for the first time; and it is a very easy way of training first-timers learning how to share the gospel and starting a conversation.
As time went on, I found myself training discouraged people in other groups taking a break back at the home base. One young man, Nicholas, was his first time sharing the gospel, at least in an event as busy as this. He was overwhelmed; being an introvert myself, I gave him some pointers on how to do it without feeling the energy from the crowd. By the end of the first day, he told me he tried the picture taking meathod, as well as finding a nook outside the main areas to get good one-on-one conversations. It really helped him, and it was something he could take and make his own where he lives.
Dr. Anthony Silvestro, D.D.S. — Headline Speaker
The speakers from past events were really good, focusing on splicing creation science and evangelism together to make a very interesting case for a Creator and that Jehovah God is that Creator. But this year I think Jon Neifert hit a grand-slam home run out of the park acquiring Dr. Anthony Silvestro from Striving for Eternity Ministries and President of Creation Revival. Not only was he fantastic to listen to, engaging the audience; but his talks were timely, relevant, and oh so needed for today’s society and those sharing their faith in a world that hates Christians.
Thursday
After Jon’s talk about Tulip Time and basic evangelism, Dr. Silvestro came up to the podium, declaring most Christians don’t know what the gospel is. He was right, and one of my main problems with the American Church. But even when he asked us to write down the gospel in three minutes, I had to think for two of those minutes about how to put it on paper. I was somewhat guilty too, and needed a little help in the area. I think every Christian, including myself, should be able to give an “elevator speech” about the gospel, what it is, why people need Jesus, and His salvation.
Friday
Yesterday’s talk was great; a good reminder of how to share the gospel in a way that unbelievers could understand, and easy enough for Christians to remember. But his talks just kept getting better. This next one, The History and Evils of Social Justice, was one that I really wanted to hear. It was freaking amazing, and if given the chance, he could have spoken about it for an entire week. I was eating up all he was dishing out, and loved every bite.
We all think that Social Justice was a new concept; but the truth is Satan takes old concepts and repackages them in a timely fashion. Dr. Silvestro went all the way back to the Renaissance Period between 1300 and 1500 A.D., continued through the Enlightenment Period of the 1700’s, and the French Revolution between the Bourgeoise and Proletariat’s. He then continued to what we have today and how we got to this point: how Marxists infiltrated the education system through men like John Dewey, the Intercolegiate Society of the 1920’s, and teachers unions.
But it wasn’t just the history that he taught, but how to combat it from a biblical worldview. In the end, Social Justice is an evil construct designed to destroy America, and is anti-God, therefore anti-Christian. I was blown away; so much that I think I chewed off what remaining nails I had on my fingers. It was intense, and Dr. Silvestro pulled no punches. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
Dr. Silvestro uses his time well and really wants others to learn so that we can teach others also. Friday afternoon was a washout because of the weather. But not for him. He decided to equip the saints who were gathered at the church from the rain and give a long impromptu talk about various topics and answer questions. He didn’t have to do it, but those who attended were extremely blessed.
Saturday
I was excited to keep this momentum going and sit under Dr. Silvestro’s final talk: Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics. Presuppositionalism is the belief that God, the Creator of all things is real; His written Word, the Bible, is true; that human beings are sinners that live in rebellion to their Creator and in need of the only Savior — Jesus Christ, who is the only one that can satisfy God’s wrath. In preparing to defend the Christian faith, the believer must understand that the conflict is a total warfare between two opposing worldviews: Christianity and everything else.
First, we start with four things we know of every person according to Romans 1 & 2:
- Everyone knows God exists.
- Everyone knows God’s Moral Law.
- The unbeliever is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
- The unbeliever exchanges the truth of God for a lie, which is the worship of idols.
No matter what the Atheist, or unbeliever says, in reality according to the Bible, they believe these four things. This may sound like a bold statement, but when you press the subject with the unbeliever, they have to succumb to the truth of Scripture. The Bible is the ultimate authority. Why? Because there is one God and everyone knows it. All Scripture is breathed out by God, which is therefore true, and He is the sovereign ruler over His creation.
This is important because the Christian doesn’t have to be a professionally trained scientist, historian, philosopher or theologian. Presuppositional Apologetics assumes God from the start with no knowledge of evidences needed to convince anyone of the existence of God. Because if I could convince you that Christianity is true by evidences and pithy sayings, then someone else can convince you otherwise.
A nonbeliever’s standards do not hold any weight when it comes to deciding what is true or not. They are not universal, rather they fall under the weight of whoever is in power. Personal opinion, what benefits society, the laws governing a society, and feelings do not dictate truth. It changes with the times, the rulers in charge, and is a house built on sand, not the rock of God’s Word (Matthew 7:24-29).
Weather was not on our side
As my wife and I were about to leave the church with more tracts and some resting of the knees, we were told that the evening festivities were cancelled due to a tornado watch. Between that and the rain on Friday, it dampened our ability to hand out all 30,000 tracts, which we could have done easily.
Many of our ministry friends were not able to partake this year due to graduations and other ministry commitments. Friends like the Bailiey’s, Tony and Steven Ramsek, and Grace Mally Moffitt were greatly missed. Lord willing, we will see them in August at the Answers In Genesis Booth at the Iowa State Fair.
Because of the weather though, my wife and I were able to have some one-on-one time with Dr. Silvestro and learned many things from him regarding not only evangelism, but health and wellness. I am grateful for his unwavering, unabashed view of the truth; and speaking with passion for the things that matter most to him. To others it may come off as sarcasm, but speaking the truth sometimes requires us to show how ridiculous the lies are in light of it.
My wife really enjoyed the conversations with his wife, Julie; his son, Anthony was very helpful and bright young man. They really genuinely take great care in the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry — and it showed. I can’t wait to read his book, On the Origin of Kinds.
Pens & Wrenches 
Good Job Frank
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Thank you, Tony.
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